Thursday, July 28, 2011

new edition to the DIY fam...

 from the same talented mind & hands that brought us this:


we later go this:


from Robert Marshall! i can't tell you or explain in the right proper words how awesome these handmade bobbleheads are. just simply amazing, and the perfect item for ANY sports fan! thanks moose!

Monday, July 25, 2011

#40 of the day goes to... a Pirate(s fan) looks at 40!

saw this gentleman at the Jimmy Buffett concert here in Pittsburgh last month (June 21st).


you can tell by the gold-black-gold sleeve ribbing that it's a current 2011 Pirates jersey. replica, no MLB logo on the back collar. and we all know the Buccos retired Murtaugh's #40

here is the song it is referencing. one of my favorite Buffett tunes:


i got a kick out of it!

Friday, July 22, 2011

so whadda ya think???

finished this last week, and delivered it to a person not to be named (his wife would be upset for spending the money) haha. you're REALLY gonna have to talk me into EVER making a #8 again. what a pain in the...


also, nameplate question on the home white!

over?


or under?


nameplate color? letters color?

i say, i don't like the nameplate over the number. just too busy up there. i think if it's below the number, a white nameplate, with black letters outlined in yellow would look sharp!

but ultimately, it's a NNOB (No Name On Back UniWatch term) jersey that looks the best for this option.

so what do you guys think?

lastly, have you been voting for the Invaders of Pittsburgh jersey on the Dayton Gems home page (scroll down to the right of their page for their "beer league" contest). please vote, we have till Aug 1st!


as always, hope you all have a great & safe weekend!

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

vote early! vote often!!!

"Gems to have a Beer League Night this Upcoming Season"
...was the headline that grabbed my attention!

VOTE FOR THE INVADERS OF PITTSBURGH, PA!
is what i'm asking you...

the Dayton Gems of the CHL are basically saluting the "beer leagues" with this beer league night promotion. if the Invaders jersey wins the month long contest, the Gems will reproduce, and wear our jerseys. they will also give money to the charity of our choice, amongst other cool things! how cool is that?!?! go read all about the contest here, and follow directions on how to vote:
to vote, go to the home page here: Dayton Gems

go to the right side of the page where it asks:
"Which jersey would you like to see the Gems wear for Beer League Night this upcoming season?"

click on the little circle/dot next to "Invaders of Pittsburgh, PA"

UPDATE: looks as if you can vote once or twice per day?

and keep doing it ALL MONTH LONG!

they ended up going with this pic:


but should have maybe went with something like this:


or even this (j/k):


thanks guys, let's make this happen!

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

New Banner

look at the top of this blog (or the pic below), and ta-da! a new banner! i drew it up yesterday and wanted it to come off as blueprint-ish. hope you like. i may add to it now and again (i'm thinking more "wile e coyote evil genius")


also, starting a painting tonight. will be sure and post the process!

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

happy birthday Frosty!

a day late on the birthday wishes, but wanted this to be it's own post.

David Frost is a fellow DIYer and the man behind the completely awesome Custom Jersey Guy site! i mean really, go check it out! the guy can make just about ANYTHING into a custom jersey of the highest quality. and i know that first hand!

when it was announced last season, or last year, that Green Bay was going to wear a throwback i loved the style right away:


even though those dirt bags beat my steelers in the... bahhh!

so anyway, i play dek hockey occasionally for a team whose colors are red/white/black. what a great opportunity to ask the services of the Frost-Man!

after only an e-mail, he knew exactly what i wanted and created this:


 front:


back:


"paco" is an old nickname my dad would call me every once in a while for a laugh. and i'm usually against putting my last name on the back of jerseys when i don't really need to. also, i label a lot of things with "paco" as a little shout out to both my mom and my dad:

(look close at the bottom inside seem of the middle jersey. sorry, best pic at the moment)

Frosty also made is own DIY Ryberto's jersey, which i can't tell you just how cool that is:


so, happy birthday, Frosty! hope to share a beer or 2 with you sometime soon...

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

home field advantage...

Paul Lukas had another REALLY cool article over at Uni Watch today titled "Mining Diamonds in the Sky." it was basically about flying from one point to another and noticing local baseball diamonds "tattooing" our landscape. really cool to see all the different set ups, and the different levels of each field or park.

"Their elemental simplicity and geometric perfection seemed somehow magnified by my high-altitude vantage point"
-Lukas

so i immediately wanted to check out, and share the google map version of the field that i grew up on:


it was only named Memorial Field in my little league and pony league days. still... brings back A LOT of fun memories! shoot, i can almost still see the cinder block my dad used to sit on to watch me play right field...

not for nothing, here is the park that i spent almost every day playing my favorite sport hockey:


can definitely see where mom pulled up and yelled at me for playing too much hockey one particular day and almost missing our evening plans! hee hee

NW, worn down tennis court was all ours. damn, those were fun times!

my limited writing skills did no justice to Paul's wonderful post over at Uni Watch, so go check it out and enjoy!

Thursday, June 16, 2011

congrats Bruins!

can't say i'm surprised though ;-)


but actually i can. i made that pick, yet doubted them about 2-3 times during the playoffs. but man, what heart they have on that team!

congrats Bruins... and have a great summer NHL! lol

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

welcome oneprettything!

big welcome to the readers of oneprettything!!!

glad you can enjoy efra's work too! here is the link/shortcut to his post:



DIYs at work

i'm not a real gun kinda guy, but couldn't pass up the opportunity to pop off on some old wine bottles and expired can goods... what can i say... i'm a guy:


and what could be better than chillin out in your favorite DIYs:


thanks to the BigTomProject for those!

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

MANNesota trip...

was out of town that past week or so, sorry for the lack of posts. i have a good excuse though:


now, back to the grind...

(more pics to come)

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Thanks & Look Out!

first off, i'd like to give an important shout out to my friend Paul Lukas... not only for the VERY awesome Uni Watch, which is a daily read and HUGE source of inspiration for me... but also for coming up with the blog description:

"Artwork, DIY Projects, and Other Ideas from the Mind of Ryan Connelly"

such a great writer he is, probably just cringes at my horrible grammar! :-)

big thanks Paul!!!

secondly, i just received my 1st ever copy of Adobe Illustrator (legit). so i'm hoping all the future logos and projects i work on in AutoCAD (which i love and will NEVER stop using), will come a bit more design oriented and "aesthetically pleasing"

just give me... oh... 8 or so years to figure it out first!

Back to the Drawing Board...

finding it difficult to sketch the monkey's arms, body, hands & neck, i had to print him out and get back to the "nitty gritty" that i love so much about drawing. a Sharpie an a #2!


couple more steps, and this logo will be finished. honestly... about half way through i'd say. stay tuned!

Friday, June 3, 2011

#40 of the day goes to...

my submission to the Pittsburgh Penguins for a 40th anniversary patch (a few years ago, of course):

well, you know my favorite number... and well, you know my favorite team... so it all seemed natural that i would submit this patch, and the Pens would... not contact me at all ;-)

still love 'em though!

check it out...

i used a design element found on these beauts: 


(Penguins 25th anniversary patch)


(NHL 75th anniversary patch)

simple enough, i traced out the penguin in AutoCAD:


then drew up the lines taken from the 25th & 75th patches:

finished result:


*pulled the images of the patches from the great website & resource: PittsburghHockey.net

hope you all have a great, safe weekend!

Friday, May 27, 2011

Slag Monkeys CC (shield, city, train, banner-empty, monkey-unfinished)

send you off into the holiday weekend with the latest Slag Monkeys Cycling Club logo

what we have is the bike chain lined shield, pittsburgh skyline, train engine, empty banner, & unfinished monkey. i'm REALLY lovin' how this is all coming together. i love the simple yet busy feel to it. and i'm already thinking of having 20 patches made up when complete!

check it out:


hope you all have a GREAT, safe holiday weekend!!! and for those of you overseas, throw a couple burgers on the grill for your buddies across the pond...

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Happy Towel Day 2011!!!

my brother Scott got me into the whole Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series when i was a kid and i've loved it ever since. in fact, it's the only book(s) i really read (i don't read all that often, so it puts me in la-la land on airplanes). anyway, today is Towel Day, "celebrating the life and work of Douglas Adams (author)"


also:

"Any one who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with."

i know where my towel is today...

(Don't Panic!)

and, don't forget this guy:

("There's a frood who really knows where his towel is")

happy towel day, world!

from Wikipedia:

"A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.
More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.
Hence a phrase that has passed into hitchhiking slang, as in "Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There's a frood who really knows where his towel is." (Sass: know, be aware of, meet, have sex with; hoopy: really together guy; frood: really amazingly together guy.)"

so long, Douglas Adams... and thanks for all the fish!

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Invaders Ticket Stub...

i did some quick research thru my old calenders and estimated the FIRST EVER Invaders game was played on June 20th, 2009!

i have always saved my tickets stubs from sports events, movies, and whatever else had a cool piece of cardstock to preserve the memory. so i decided to draw up my own in AutoCAD! here's what would have got you in the door on the 20th... enjoy:


i wanted the result to look as "ticketmaster" official as i could (without all the added taxes and surcharges). note the fonts, and placement. also note that the "sec/row/seat" designations are all "off-kilter" as if these tickets were mass produced for the event, and lined up with no regard toward asthetics...

i pretty much collected jerseys up until i made my first Invaders jersey... wonder what this is gonna do to my ticket stub collection...

Friday, May 20, 2011

Dayton Invaders?

sorry for my absence, or lack of DIY posts. been a REALLY busy week for me. will have much more content, and yet ANOTHER fun project i can't wait to work on and post here soon (ticket stub, what?)!

until then, here are the images i sent to the Dayton Gems hockey team for their Beer League Night promotion (details here)

wish us luck when the contest starts... you'll know AS SOON as it starts! muah ha ha haaa (evil laugh)







Friday, May 13, 2011

letting the chips fall where they may...

and by "chips" i obviously mean all the pieces of the Slag Monkeys puzzle i've been drawing!

shield + bike chain + pittsburgh's beautiful skyline + a roarin' steam engine + a banner = a halfway finished logo:


hope you all have a great, safe weekend!!!

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Koinobori by Chamuco's Studio...

Koinobori by Chamuco's Studio

my first ever guest DIY entry! from Efra Sanchez of Chamuco Studio

Efra and I constantly e-mail each other about DIYs, art ideas, and our love for all things "logo"... so when he told me he was in the middle of a DIY, naturally i had to see. what a great idea, and even better execution of said idea. i'll let Efra take it from here:

"Koinobori is Japanese for a flag that's shaped like a kind of fish called a carp. Every year on May 5th, Japanese families fly these flags in front of their homes to celebrate a holiday called Children's Day. That's when children thank their parents for the care they give them and parents celebrate the healthy growth of their children. The flags are shaped like carp because carp are very strong fish and can jump high out of the water. 

Japanese families fly Koinobori in front of their homes to make a wish that their children will be strong and healthy like the carp."

example:

 
sketching out the Koinobori:


translation into Illustrator (then later printed onto paper):


final .pdf... ready for print!:

(for a copy of the original .pdf, please e-mail either me (here) or, Efra (here))

supplies - print out of Koinobori, glue, scissors or X-Acto knife, ruler (optional):


cut out pieces:


look out for tabs on the right side of the fish:


fold fish "cut-out" long way but don't crease:


fold tabs:


and add glue:

press together and make sure glue is dry before continuing:


glue tail:


attach purple "string" by adding glue to the inside of the mouth:




glue the bottom of the mouth opening:


finished!


most important step... hang and enjoy:


RyCo here... now tell me THAT ain't a great DIY! and what a cool idea. an awesome conversation piece wherever it's hangin'... Efra, now we're going to have to get you in contact with some nylon shops... i'm thinking some 5 to 7 footers!!! haha. great work, and thanks for letting me share on the blog! also, thanks for the detailed pics and step by step... looking forward to the next one

hope you all enjoyed!